


Fate Thinks It's Funny

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9062032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: In a world where everyone has their soulmate's first words to them printed on their wrists, Derek and Stiles end up with some of the worst: "Oh God please help" and "Derek" respectivelyTo be fair, their first meeting is almost as ridiculous as it sounds like it would be





	

**Author's Note:**

> One of two fics I wrote for madnessofvoid, who is absolutely stunning and amazing and deserves all of your love and affection <3 Go say hi to her and read the amazing fic she wrote for my Christmas gift "Merry Christmas, Derek"!!

Everyone is born with a soulmark tattooed on the inside of their wrist- the first words your soulmate will say to you

For some people the words are there from birth, for others, it's simply a blurry mess of lines until their soulmate is actually born

Ofcourse there are alot of people born unlucky who have the typical greetings like "Hi", "Excuse me", "May I help you?" etc that make it nearly impossible to discern your soulmate from a random person before comparing your mark to their's

But there are also people who are lucky enough to have more... unique... things printed on their wrists

Derek wasn't sure if he could call himself "lucky", but his sure was unique

 _"Oh God please help"_ weren't exactly words that came up in normal conversation after all

When the words appeared on his wrist a few months after his sixth birthday his initial reaction was panic

Even now he found himself constantly worried for the day he would meet his soulmate

As much as he wanted to meet them and spend the rest of their lives together, he also never wanted to be in a situation where his soulmate was so desperate for help, and from a stranger no less

What if things went badly?

What if he ended up in one of those horror stories he always heard about where your soulmate dies the same day that you meet them?

What if they're suffering and Derek _can't_ help them?

It's scary, and Derek ends up mostly keeping to himself largely because of it

He avoided anything that could potentially cause confusion or get his hopes up- meaning careers in things like law and medicine or any type of emergency feild were out

He stayed away from big cities like NYC and Los Angeles with high rates of crimes and accidents and just overall trouble

He even skipped out on things that caused big crowds or an over abundance of people, though, that was only partly due to his worries for his soulmate, mostly it was just because his werewolf senses tended to get easily overloaded in situations like those

He kept life as quiet, simple, and mundane as he could, in the vain hopes that maybe, somehow, whatever his soulmate was crying for help for wouldn't be that bad

And he knew, logically, that that isn't how fate works

He could live as a hermit in a cabin in Russia somewhere and if he was meant to meet his soulmate at a Taylor Swift concert in Tokyo he'd find himself- somehow, some way- at a Taylor Swift concert in Tokyo

But he couldn't help feeling, emotionally, like the more he avoided heavy situations, the better his chances were that his soulmate WASN'T going to end up in some horrible situation upon meeting him...

~+~

Stiles was born with his soulmark already fully developed

Wich meant that his soulmate was older than he was, but by how much, he wasn't sure

It could be as little as a few minutes or as much as a few DECADES and there was no way to know

The only thing he DID know for sure was that he was connected to the name Derek

Because that's exactly what his soulmark said

"Derek"

Just Derek

No context, no inflection, nothing, just...

Derek

So naturally, being a sensible person, Stiles has spent the better part of his life trying his best to be in the vicinity of people named Derek

He may have tracked down local Dereks and casually inserted himself into their lives throughout his teen years, but never to any luck

It was surprising how many times he could ask a Derek "What's your name?" and get a response OTHER than just "Derek"

Usually it was a full name, but even after Stiles started specifying with "What's your FIRST name?" he still got things like "I'm Derek", "It's Derek", and ofcourse the ever popular "Why?"

So he was stacking the deck a little, so what? Lots of people did it!

But by the time he turned nineteen Stiles had gone through about every Derek in the city who was older than he was

He didn't know what else to try at this point, and honestly, he was a little discouraged

If he couldn't meet a soulmate named Derek in Beacon Hills, then that meant one of only two things:

1\. He wasn't named Derek, and he just said the word "Derek" for some completely different reason (maybe he thought STILES' name was Derek? That was almost worrying)

Or 2. He didn't live in Beacon Hills...

Atleast not yet

He could always move there some other time ofcourse, maybe that's when Stiles meets him, but the much more likely reason was that they met when one or both of them was out of town...

Meaning his soulmate would be long distance and that... that was never going to be easy

Even if they did eventually move closer to eachother, and most soulmates did when that was the case, the beginning would be hell...

That was exactly why Stiles was going to stay right here, thank you very much, because traditionally, there was an unspoken rule that if your soulmate is from out of town, you stay in whoever's hometown you meet in

Sure there were plenty of exceptions, tons of times when, for whatever reason, the couple decides to move to the other person's town or to just forget the hometown thing and go somewhere else entirely

But in the case of neither party having a reason or desire to move from their home, it usually tended to work out that way

And Stiles was not going to be in a position where there was even a QUESTION about him leaving his father

Thus why Stiles was determinedly going to leave town as little as possible

He was not going to leave as long as he could help it

....

And yet here he was packing a bag to leave for a week long holiday trip hoping that this somehow wouldn't come back to bite him

~+~

"Aww come on Derek, don't be a stick in the mud,"

If Derek had a penny for every time he had heard that or something similar to it, he was sure he'd be able to pay for his own island where he could live in solitude and never have to hear them again

"Not wanting to attend a frat party doesn't make me a stick in the mud,"

"It isn't a frat party, it's a college party, there's a difference,"

He rolled his eyes, shifting the laptop screen as he stared down at the image of his sisters

"It's times like these when I have a really hard time understanding how we're related Derek," Cora said with a sigh

"Likewise," Derek grumbled, he couldn't believe he was stuck in this situation

He had been perfectly happy at home and then, thanks to his younger sister wrecking her car, he and Laura were sent all the way up to New York to retrieve her and bring her home for Christmas

Now Derek didn't usually mind doing things for his sisters, but this was kind of at the point of being ridiculous

What was worse was definitely the fact that said sisters were currently at Cora's college having the time of their lives with the fact that winter break had finally started, and they kept trying to encourage Derek to join them

No chance in hell....

"Just have your fun now, the day after tommorrow we're going back to Beacon Hills, I'm not getting a late start because you two spent all night partying,"

"You sound ancient," Cora said with a roll of her eyes

"We know Derek, we know, don't worry, I'll make sure Cora doesn't damage anything that would prevent her from being hauled back to Beacon Hills,"

"Thanks," he said with a small smirk

"I know if I didn't you'd just tell Mom anyway," Laura winked teasingly

"You know it," he smirked back, saying a quick goodbye to the two of them before X-ing out of the video chat

He leaned back on the couch, propping up his laptop and opening his browser

"Hello, Only Good Thing That Came Out Of This Freaking Year," he hummed, clicking on the Yuri!!! On Ice episode he wanted to watch

He couldn't care less about spending his holidays partying or "socializing" or doing any number of things that people said he should do, he just wanted to stay in and relax, was that so horrible?

He was barely ten minutes through the episode, more contemplating to himself than actually paying attention, when he suddenly heard a loud banging on the door, startling him into pausing the video and jerking his headphones off

He stared at the door for a moment, swallowing and resisting the urge to jump again when the pounding came back for a second round

Getting up slowly, he headed to the door and paused, claws itching against his fingers as he tore the door open and prepared for the worst

"Oh God please help!"

Those words....

Those were the words....

Derek felt his entire world pause, his heart stuttering, mouth falling open and eyes blowing wide, because... those were the words....

"My car broke down and I'm FREEZING and please please please let me use your phone!!"

Derek just gave a small nod, swallowing tightly as the man rushed into the cabin

Was this.... could this guy actually be his soulmate...?

Sure he hadn't met anyone in twenty-five years who had said those words to him but that didn't automatically mean that they were going to be together

Still, the chances were pretty high, it wasn't as if he had said something like "Hello" or "Good evening" or any of the other dime a dozen greetings normal people exchange after all

"Oh my God you are a LIFESAVER man! Seriously, you have no idea, it's so freaking cold outside and I've been out there wandering for TWENTY. MINUTES. looking for a place to go, ofcourse leave it to stupid me to leave my phone uncharged at a time like this but I THOUGHT I had charged it this morning and-"

"Derek,"

The man stopped suddenly, hand half-way on the landline, and looked up at Derek with an expression of shock on his face

"You... what?"

"My name is Derek," he replied simply

He shouldn't have been so... blunt... perhaps, but he just.. hadn't known what to say

What was he supposed to say when he possibly had his soulmate right in front of him?

"Oh... my God.. um, ok, personal question time, what um... what are your soulmate's first words?"

Derek blinked, not sure what to say to that at first but... if he was asking.... then did that mean...?

The man rolled his sleeve up, moving his wrist band away to show the word **"Derek"** printed neatly and evenly over his skin

Shaking and unable to speak, he rolled up his own sleeve, turning his wrist over for the stranger to see

_"Oh God please help"_

They were both quiet for a few moments, before Stiles allowed a small smirk to slip over his lips

"Wow, man, I am SO sorry for making you travel through life with THAT on your body, I honestly had no idea,"

"Not so bad, atleast it's easy not to get my hopes up when I meet new people,"

"Fair, but you should apologize to me too you know, do you have ANY idea how many Dereks I've had to meet before I could find one who's first word to me was 'Derek'?"

"You should just be glad that my name is Derek and it isn't written there because your soulmate mistook YOU for someone named Derek, otherwise you'd have someone else's name written on your wrist,"

"Yeah, thought of that already, man... look at this, as far as soul marks go these are kind of horrible, fate must think it's really freaking funny to set us up like this," he snorted, rubbing the back of his neck

"It certainly makes me feel like the universe has a sense of humor yes," Derek agreed with a slight nod, things going quiet for a quick moment after

"So um... I'm Stiles, and I probably should have said that much sooner,"

"Stiles," Derek repeated slowly, giving a small nod

"You said your car broke down? Where were you heading?"

"Um, home, I was up here for a freind's wedding and now I'm on my way back to Beacon Hills, bu-"

"You live in Beacon Hills too?"

Stiles' eyes widened, mouth falling open with excitement

"Yeah I live in Beacon Hills! YOU live in Beacon Hills!? But... but I checked all of the Dereks who live there, you weren't one of them,"

"I'm unlisted, I live in the woods,"

Stiles stared at him for a moment, confusion in his expression

"Wait.... you're serious?"

"I have a cabin there," he shrugged, "I'm only here to drag my little sister home from college, this is actually HER cabin but she and my other sister are at a party currently and are planning to stay at someone's dorm so they won't be back until tommorrow at some point,"

Ah, that made sense, though it would figure that he tried his hardest to find a Derek- HIS Derek in Beacon Hills- and it just FIGURED that his Derek was freaking unlisted, living in the woods like a hermit or something...

"That's cool, I mean... yeah that's pretty.... guess you don't like the city?"

"Not really," Derek shrugged back, clearing his throat and licking his lips

"Listen I... I'm not ... great with cars but my sister is, she practically BUILT her Camaro, so... if you can wait until she gets back tommorrow she can fix it for you for free, and ... maybe you can .. follow us back? We're leaving the next morning, I don't know if you can wait that long but-"

"I can SO wait that long!" Stiles beamed

"I mean, you're not only offering to let me avoid paying out the nose for a mechanic, but you're also volunteering to drive back with me and make road trip hell a little bit less hell AND letting me meet your family, that's great!"

"I wouldn't consider the 'meeting my family' thing as a benefit but whatever you say,"

To say that his sisters could be a bit of a handfull was being more than generous, but Stiles didn't seem to mind atleast

"Dude, don't worry about it, we all have those relatives, but we're soulmates, you know? I'd have to meet them eventually anyway, might as well be now, give me some time to get used to them before we start popping out babies,"

He had a breif moment of worry that he had said too much, alot of soulmates- especially these days- were skittish about the concept of future commitments, worrying that their partner would want too much too quickly from them, but luckily Derek didn't seem alarmed

In fact he seemed downright happy

"That's a good point I suppose, would you like to stay here until your car is fixed then? I mean, the nearest hotel is-"

"I would TOTALLY like to stay here," Stiles replied quickly, eyes bright and smile wide and kind of ridiculous

"O-Oh um... great, good,"

He paused, taking a breath and rushing to speak again before Stiles could

"I could cook something for you if.... if you're hungry, if you haven't eaten..."

"Really? I'm starving, haven't eaten all day," he added with a shrug

Derek gave a quick nod, heading towards the couch

"I'll make something then, just let me turn off my laptop, what kind of food do you like?"

"Um... well, burgers, pasta, sandwiches, chicken... I'm not that picky honestly, you make it, I'll eat it,"

So Stiles was being just a LITTLE bit more flexible than he usually would have been, was it so terrible that he wanted to be atleast a little agreeable in his first time seeing his soulmate?

He stepped closer behind Derek, snagging a quick peek at his laptop screen as Derek shut it down

"Heeeeey is that Yuri On Ice?"

"It was," Derek answered, closing the laptop lid

Stiles couldn't help the smirk that came to his lips, shoving his hands in his pockets as he started following Derek towards the kitchen

"I think this 'soulmate' thing might just be more accurate than we thought,"

~+~

When Derek had first offered to let Stiles stay in Cora's cabin, he hadn't been thinking about the sleeping arrangements

Not that he would change anything now if he could, and not that he at all regretted his decision, but he just didn't know how to quite go about this

They had already had dinner- due to sheer lack of ingredients, Derek had been stuck making chicken fingers, not that Stiles had minded a single bit though- and had ended up watching one of the X-Files Christmas specials over bowls of cookie dough ice cream

They had been stretching out the evening, simply enjoying eachother's company- wich felt... almost strange, there was no grand need to have small talk or conversation, and things between them never seemed to get awkward or tense, just...

Nice

It was all nice

But they had dragged this out quite a bit already, having decided to watch a horror movie together after the X-Files special, and it was quite late

They needed to go to bed and get some sleep, especially considering that tommorrow was going to be somewhat hectic, Derek knew his sisters would probably be all over Stiles like he was a shiny new toy and the next day they were going to have to start the impossibly long drive back to Beacon Hills, so staying up into the wee hours wasn't much of a choice

"Are you ready to get some sleep?" he finally asked, noticing the way Stiles' eyes kept falling shut a little bit longer than usual each time he blinked

The other man looked up, blinking a little bit more and shrugging casually

"Sure, do you have a guest room or are we having our first sleep over sharing a bed already?"

Well atleast that took some of the awkward out

"There are two rooms, I've been sleeping in the guest room but if you want it I can just sleep in Cora's,"

"Well, we could always just... share the guest room? Make a compromise,"

Derek didn't realize how much he had been hoping for that answer until the wave of releif washed over him, a small smile gracing his lips as he reached out and took Stiles' hand

"Compromising... I think we can handle that,"

~+~

Stiles woke up feeling wrong

Not physically but just... something was off for some reason...

He rolled over, groping around for his favorite pillow to curl up with, when he suddenly started to remember that this bed wasn't his own and he sat up, swallowing tightly and reaching out for where Derek should have been

The space was empty

"Derek?" he called quietly, looking around for any sign of light in the room

"Derek?" he called again, a little bit louder this time

But there was no answer...

Silently, he slipped out of bed and held his palm out, a small orb of light filling the space- thanks magic!- as he started padding towards the door

He opened it as quietly as an old, creaking door WOULD open and peered out, feeling his stomach sink when he realized that Derek hadn't just gone to the bathroom, he could see down the hall and the bathroom door was open and the room was clearly empty...

He tip-toed out of the bedroom, heart starting to pound when he picked up on a noise coming from downstairs

Rushing over to the stairwell, he peered down and found that there were plenty of lights on beneath him, and, hoping that Derek was downstairs for some odd reason, he made his way down the old steps as well

It was almost concerning how relieved he felt when he got to the bottom of the stairs and saw Derek moving around in the kitchen, flicking the light out of his palm and heading that way himself

"What the hell are you doing?" he frowned, and, ok, he had meant to be much more tactfull than that but...

It was 3:56 A.M. and Derek was down here working around the kitchen like freaking Gordon Ramsy and that was NOT. COOL.

"Stiles? What are you doing up?" the other asked in surprise, setting down the mixing bowl he had been using and quirking an eyebrow at him

"Oh I always get up at 3:56 in the morning to wander around aimlessly for an hour, how about you?" he bit back

He had half-expected an equally sarcastic response, but Derek didn't give him one, instead looking down and rubbing the back of his neck anxiously

"I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd get a jump on a little holiday baking, I was going to be right up as soon as this batch is dead, I swear,"

Stiles sighed, shoulders sagging and tension starting to drain out of his body as his anger seeped away

Great, now he was starting to feel guilty

After all, he couldn't blame the poor guy for insomnia, especially when that was a problem that had haunted Stiles himself for years on end...

"You usually bake when you can't sleep?" he asked curiously, making his way to the kitchen table and plopping down in the nearest chair

After all, Stiles, unlike Derek, wasn't awake because he couldn't sleep

"I do, I um... actually, I own a bakery, so I-"

"Woah woah woah WOAH, we've known eachother for almost eight hours now and you DIDN'T think it was important to immediately mention the fact that you own a BAKERY?"

Sure, they hadn't bothered talking about jobs or work or anything, having found somehow that it was more pleasant to talk about random things and get to know eachother as people rather than information booths, but still!!

"It never came up," Derek frowned in confusion

"Dude, that kind of thing is a topic on it's OWN though," Stiles sighed, shaking his head and leaning back against the back of the chair with a yawn

To think that all this time he could have been knowing that his soulmate owned a bakery and he just had no idea...

"I'm sorry that I woke you up," Derek said with a slight frown, head hung sadly as he took the mixing bowl back and headed back towards the stove

"It's... it's fine, really, it wasn't you even, I just... I don't know... something jolted me awake, you've been gone for a little wile though haven't you?"

"Two hours," he agreed with a small nod, opening the oven to pull the tray of cookies out and set them on the stove

Stiles hummed quietly to that, the sweet scent of cookies filling his nose and making the entire sleep incident a little bit easier to swallow

"You think you'll be able to sleep now?" Stiles asked hopefully

"Baking usually does help me sleep yes," Derek agreed, putting a new tray of cookies in the oven and shutting the door as he started to clean up the counter, jumping a little when Stiles abruptly got up and started helping him

"What do you do, by the way? College?" he guessed

After all, Stiles knew what he did now, it was only fair

"Nope, I own a used bookstore," Stiles shrugged back

Derek paused, eyebrows raised in surprise

"Aren't you only nineteen?"

"I spent my college savings on it, long story, I'll tell you tommorrow or something," he offered

Derek supposed he could live with that, giving a small nod in agreement and putting a few stray cooking tools in the sink

"What about you? College or...?"

"No, I never had any interest, I've always felt more... at peace... when I'm baking so that's what I decided to do,"

"So pretty much the same reason why I have the bookstore then," Stiles added, turning the sink on and searching the cabinets for soap as Derek moved to peel the baked cookies off of the tray- he'd frost them in the morning, for now he was getting tired and feeling guilty for Stiles being up so he'd just put them in a container over night

"Soooo... are any of your bakery items wolf freindly or just ... normal stuff? I mean, is there anything special in them or...?"

Derek paused, surprise written over his face as he glanced up at the other man

"How did you know I'm a wolf?"

"I've been running with wolves my entire life, it gets easy to spot after a wile, plus I'm a spark so... you know, intuition,"

Ah, that would make sense then

Besides Stiles' familiarity with werewolves, sparks were extremely intuitive creatures, a branch of the witch family, there wasn't alot that could get past them...

"I guess that's lucky, if it turned out I was mated to a human this might get pretty awkward pretty fast,"

Humans knew about the supernatural yes, they had for about a century, but most of them still couldn't tell when someone WAS supernatural and coming out was always something of an ordeal

"Did you not know I was a spark?" Stiles asked with a teasing smirk as he started to scrub some of the dishes in the sink, watching Derek set the container of cookies on top of the top cabinets- presumably so his sisters wouldn't get to them before he did

"No I knew, I just didn't know if YOU knew,"

"You couldn't smell the wolf pack on me?"

"Again-"

"Right right, didn't know if I knew," Stiles said dismissively

He was just glad for the dish washer at this point, a quick scrub down to make sure all of the major stuff was off and then into the machine with these things

"I think I went a little overboard this time," Derek said with a sad sigh, eyes closing as he stared at the oven with distaste

The cookies wouldn't be done for a wile yet but he could already feel exhaustion really starting to sink into his bones, he needed to rest but he couldn't just leave them in the oven- they'd burn... or worse....

"I hate it when I do that, and believe me, I do that often... we could always watch that Yuri On Ice episode I interrupted wile we wait? They should be done by the time it's over and it's a great way to keep you awake,"

Well, he wasn't wrong, Derek supposed...

~+~

Stiles was, in fact, wrong

They were both wrong, unfortunately enough

And Derek had newly come into this knowledge when he found himself being shaken awake just over a half hour after the video started

"Derek? Derek come on, we need to go upstairs, sleeping on the couch like this is bad for you,"

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, mumbling something incoherent as he glanced up at Stiles' face

"Mm... cookies...?"

"I took care of it,"

Derek sat up a little more, glancing at the coffee table and finding his laptop already turned off and closed

Stiles was quite efficient it seemed...

"Come on Big Guy, if we go upstairs right now we can cuddle,"

Derek stared up at his companion in confusion as he stumbled off of the couch, rubbing his stinging eyes the entire time

"How did you know I'm a cuddler?" he mumbled with a yawn

"Because when you dozed off earlier you wrapped yourself around me like a koala and wouldn't let go," Stiles smirked, bringing a blush to the werewolf's cheeks

"Sorry..."

"Don't apologize, I'm a cuddler too," Stiles replied casually, shrugging and helping Derek get up the stairs

He hadn't realized how tired he was- or even close to how tired he was- until now, when he could barely keep his eyes open

He'd like to blame it on the baking but... baking had never done THIS well by him before...

He had a feeling there was another, mole-splattered reason why he felt so content and calm, like he could sleep for a million years and wouldn't even mind...

"I'm also a kisser, just so you know," Stiles added as soon as they were at the top of the stairs

Derek jerked his head up, heart nearly skipping a beat as he stared into Stiles' eyes, the hallway only illuminated by the ball of light in his soulmate's palm

"I.. I'm going to make good on that," Derek promised, a small, shy smile plastered to his face as he followed Stiles eagerly down the hall and towards the bedroom

"I know, but probably in the morning huh?"

Unfortunately, Derek nodded, it would have to wait, he was just too tired to do much of anything right now, no matter how badly he wanted to

They crawled into bed and it felt so amazingly normal and domestic, like he had been doing this for decades and was already used to the way Stiles curved to fit him, the way the spark leaned up against him and pressed their bodies together

It was absolutely incredible... were all soulmates already so in sync like this?

He felt the other squirm a little, wrapping his arms around him instinctively and closing his eyes, he could feel himself already starting to drift...

Atleast, he did until he felt something soft and warm press against his lips, it was a short, fleeting moment, but it was real, Derek had definitely felt it...

"Goodnight Derek," Stiles said quietly

The wolf smiled, hugging him a little bit tighter and closing his eyes as he returned the small, chaste kiss, absently noticing the lines of his soulmark

_"Oh God please help"_

He couldn't help smiling with satisfaction and releif over the fact that he would never have to worry over about those words or what they meant ever, ever again

"Goodnight Stiles,"


End file.
